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Saturday, November 18, 2006

Betting on a losing horse

Some positions aren't worth the effort to either prove or disprove. You don't need to learn enough about them to learn if they're true or false. You only need to learn enough to know that, even if they were true, they'd be losing propositions.

If Buddhism is true, then Buddhism is a blind alley. If Darwinism is true, then Darwinism is a blind alley.

Why learn more and more about every brick in a blind alley?

Suppose you're diagnosed with terminal cancer? Would you want to spend every moment of your remaining time learning everything you could about the ins and outs of terminal cancer?

If the truth does us no good, then why should we care? At that point, the truth becomes our enemy. If it's true, we're screwed.

So, as soon as we learn enough to find out that certain positions are losers, we can safely ignore them and redirect our attention to positions which are more promising—which would be beneficial if they were true.

The point I'm making is not that we should indulge in make-believe or wishful thinking. Rather, the only truth worth knowing is a truth that does us some ultimate good.

Otherwise, it's like measuring the gas chambers for new drapes. Picking the right fabric. Along with an upbeat color scheme.

If a certain proposition is a losing proposition, then we have nothing to lose by ignoring it. For, if it's true, then we're going to be on the losing end of the proposition either way, and there's nothing we can do about it. If it's true, then we lose whether we believe it or not. We lose whether we live by it or not.

So, we should invest our time in claims which, if true, offer a return on the investment.

Dawkins is betting on a losing horse. And he knows it’s a losing horse. First you die, then you rot.

What is more, he wants you to bet on his losing steed.

He thinks it’s terribly important to map the anatomy of his losing steed. Terribly important to know more and more about his losing steed.

You can never know too much about a losing horse. After all, it’s the only racehorse you’ve got.

Is it a thoroughbred loser or a half-breed loser? Arabian loser or losing Mustang?

We have high standards for our losing steeds. Peer-reviewed losers. Losers with doctorates from Ivy League universities. Tenured losers. Nobel Laureate losers.

Our losers are better than your losers.

Every losing horse deserves an Ivy League vet to shoot it after the race. Every losing horse deserves an Ivy League slaughterhouse.

And we can never been too fastidious about the jockey we hire to ride our losing horse. There’s a strict screening process. References. Background checks. Credentials from all the best racetracks. The Derby. The Belmont. The Gold Cup.

And it’s terribly important to narrow the odds. It isn’t enough to know that you’re betting on a losing horse. No, you need to know by how much the horse is going to lose.

It’s terribly important to determine whether Dawkins’ losing odds are right on the mark, or Wilsons’ losing odds are right on the mark.

It’s terribly important to know whether the margin of Dawkins’ losing odds are closer to the crushing defeat than Wilsons’ losing odds.

How long are the losing odds? Will we lose by 50 to 1 or 100 to 1? Whether the losing odds are long or short is a question of pressing importance.

And that’s not all. By how many laps did we lose? Two laps? Ten laps?

So much to learn, and so little time.

But what’s most important of all is to bet all your money on the losing horse. No hedging allowed!

It’s every man’s civic duty to bet his life savings on a horse he knows is a bound to lose. Anything less would be unsportsmanlike.

We may be losers, but we can take pride in our losing streak. It’s no small achievement to rack up an unbroken losing streak. That takes a lot of practice.

6 comments:

The problem with theism is that they are too afraid to face the truth. The truth is big, ugly, scary, and doesn't fit into the cartoon universe they want. So they invent the cartoon universe variant of it, and live happily in this imagined falsehood.

Does the truth scare ya? To quote Dawkins; "Well, that's just tought."

So, as soon as we learn enough to find out that certain positions are losers, we can safely ignore them and redirect our attention to positions which are more promising—which would be beneficial if they were true.

I.e. wishful thinking.

Yet another post in the triablogue series of "we obliquely admit our worldview is nothing but wishful thinking".

[quote=steve]If a certain proposition is a losing proposition, then we have nothing to lose by ignoring it. For, if it's true, then we're going to be on the losing end of the proposition either way, and there's nothing we can do about it. If it's true, then we lose whether we believe it or not. We lose whether we live by it or not.

So, we should invest our time in claims which, if true, offer a return on the investment.

Dawkins is betting on a losing horse. And he knows it’s a losing horse. First you die, then you rot.[/quote]

You have tipped your hand once again.

Your anti-science rants are amusing and give a window into the compartmentized mind of a fundie calvanist and therefore worth the occasional read. However, engaging any effort into real substantial give and take with you is futile. There is no give, only take. You are exactly a representative of what you rail against, an arguer full of claims that offers no return on the inevestment, if your investment is looking for someone who is engaging you in an intellectually honest manner.

The fact that you only wish to "invest" your time on claims that give you a feel-goody answer highlight your bias and your inability to search for truth. Your arguments, while full of sophistry, are nothing more than you propping up your hopes and desires.

Pascal's Wager (and any Diet, Caffiene-free version of it) is a worthless arguement that supports its enemies more than its friends.

If A is right, I go to heaven or hell

versus

If B is right, nothing bad happens in the end

Then A is the smart choice because I can effect the outcome.

What an ignorant line of logic! Reworded with the whole picture (which includes all of the realities of the situation) in mind, Pascal's Wager is an arguement based in romantic ignorance:

If A is right, but requires I give up my precious time committing to A to avoid hell

versus

If B is right, my precious time is spent doing what I want to do instead of looking for something that will never happen

Then neither (based on this arguement alone) is better if it is based on the end result.

Try to explain to a devout christian who battles homosexual tendencies Pascal's Wager and he/she will laugh in your face. Tell Joan of Arc or any martyr from any religion Pascal's Wager and you offer them no comfort. The end result does not exist in a vacuum but is defined by what occurs in the present. The present is never as generic and easy as Pascal wishes. To adopt Pascal's Wager is to remove the realities of this present life and the hard choices that some people have to make.

The only thing Pascal's Wager tells me is that Pascal was never persecuted and never had to live what he believed in any meaningful way. As long as "A" is easy, then Pascal is right. The moment "A" becomes expensive... the moment "A" requires that Pascal give up everything based only on his hopeful logic, the courage of his rationale shrinks.

Pascal might not be so confident if someone put a gun to his head and said: "Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?" If you're wrong and you die, you have sold the remaining years of your life for a lie."

A girl in Columbine made a similar decision and I seriously doubt she used Pascal's advice to chose the uncertainty of death.

Life is precious. If it is the only life that you have and you only have a few decades before you cease to exist then every minute you spend is essential... wasting it preparing for something that will not happen is a waste of the time that you don't have.

No matter which choice you pick, if you are wrong, you LOSE. They are both losing horses when based solely on evaluating the consequences.

So instead of looking for the dead ends, maybe consult a map and figure out which way is the right way ahead of time.

In the end, decisions about the afterlife must be made on faith not on logic. If the decision is made on logic, your opinion about which is the best choice will change with the circumstances that determine your rationalization. The moment "A" means sacrifice, Pascal's Wager gets thrown out the window and the shaky foundation for your belief is shattered.

Thankfully, faith allows you to overcome human logic. It is a gift from God that frees you from your mortal ignorance and sinful doubt. The only reason why any decision other than the true faith is a losing horse is because the winner has already been determined.

Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and men. Faith is the only way to be saved.

...and logic won't ever reveal that because (as centuries of human existance have proven) the human intelect is as flawed as it is limited. No one is smart enough to figure the universe out on their own and be confident in it without being arrogant or crazy. The human mind can't prove things it doesn't understand or observe.... it can only guess. With faith removed, every option is exactly that.. a human guess.

The afterlife is just one example of how illequiped every person is to decide the things of God on their own. The more the human inventions to explain the universe are investigated, the more they are proven to be nothing more than imaginative guesses and the more puzzled the slaves of logic become. There are no more provable scientific laws on the near horizon.

Scientist now spend most of their time reinventing the same wheels and using new technology to shed light on the shallow end of the pool of man's questions. Much of the "new advances" in the fields of science are little more than theory and a kind of bastard anthropocetnric religion.

Man is quickly reaching the limit of his scope. Gravity, Reltativity, and Thermodynamics were easy compared to the size of the universe and the measurement of eternity. Every child reaches a limit to what he is capable of learning. Humanity will eventually reach that point. To think that man has no limits is the height of foolishness.

It is easy to explain why some creatures evolve. It is impossible to say how the molocules originally came into being. Even if we discover and prove a source that exists beneath that level of detail, it doesn't resolve the question of what came first. Every thoery of science always reamins blissfully ignorant of the next step. Each discovery only rules out what was known before and extends the answer beyond the next discovery.

The "what happened before that" game will always end with one choice that cannot be proven one way or another. Ironnically, it is the same choice we are presented with now and have been presented with since we started to wonder these questions.

Either there has to be a point where something existed without a previous cause.... it has to terminate at an infinite, creative originator OR it really is just a string of infitine cause and effect with no rhyme or reason.

That choice of logic will never be answered by us and we can only know for srue when the creative originator choses to reveal himself and removes all need for arguement. Surely the other option can never be proven for sure because science can never know what it has yet to learn. There will always be the nagging doubt that something is being missed. That is the curse of logic. That is the naked emperor. You can never know for sure by your own power.

That question is not Newton under a tree getting plugged with apples. That is not something that the human brain will ever achieve and certainly not in time for you to know one way or another before you face death. In the end, you will always have a small part of the story to go on.

That is why christianity is foolishness to those without faith. They are bringing a knife (flawed logic from limited human understanding) to a gun fight (faith given by the all knowing God.)

Those with faith should stick with speaking in terms of faith. Don't ever try to argue logic with logic because you are no better equipped than they are. In the end, we are all too stupid to come up with our own solution. We have to be shown the answer by a higher authority or wallow in our own ignorance and self-delusion.

If Dawkins had been on the Titanic he would have told you that the 'truth' is that the ship will flounder in a couple of hours so don't waste your time saving yourself, just go up on deck and listen to the violins, have a glass of wine and enjoy. But a Christian would be running about frantically trying to strap together anything that may float to form a raft. Dawkins would be pleased to point out to you even if you survive the sinking of the ship, you will never be found in the middle of the ocean, you will die anyway. Just enjoy the truth while you can.